Skip to main content

Khadijah Ibrahim

Position
Writer, poet, performer
Location
Leeds

Khadijah Ibrahiim was born in Leeds of Jamaican parentage. Educated at the University of Leeds, she is a literary activist, theatre maker and published writer, who combines interdisciplinary art forms to re-imagine poetry as performance theatre. Hailed as one of Yorkshire’s most prolific poets by the BBC. Her work appears in university journals and poetry anthologies and on BBC radio 4 and radio 3. Her collection 'Another Crossing' was published by Peepal Tree Press 2014. Khadijah has performed and produced art programs in the USA, Caribbean, Africa and Asia. In 2010 she was writer in residence for El Gouna writes, Egypt, the same year she travelled to South Africa as part of the British council Verbalized sustained theatre program.

The recipient of the Leeds Black Award 2011 for outstanding contribution to arts, In 2017 and 2019 she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Compton poetry Fellowship. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the Sue Rider ‘Yorkshire Woman of the Year for her contribution to the arts. And in 2020 she received a Leeds Legacy Award for her ‘international impact in the arts. She is the founder and Artistic director of Leeds Young Authors, and executive producer of the award winning documentary, ‘We Are Poets’. In 2017 she was the creative associate for the production Ode to Leeds at the Leeds Playhouse. Khadijah is an associate artist with the Geraldine Connor foundation ‘GCF’ and co-coordinator for inscribe readers writer’s development program for Peepal Tree Press and associate director for The Performance Ensemble.

Khadijah's commissioned work include `Dead and Wake 'featured as part of Words in the City, ‘Sorrel & Black cake’ A Windrush Story, Heritage Lottery funded. Dead and Wake ‘Rewind & Come Again’ Opera North, Halfway and Beyond ‘Symphonic Dancers‘ Phoenix Dance Theatre. ‘Flying’ a reflection on contemporary life’ BBC Radio 4. Khadijah is part of Collections in Verse, Poet in the City and the British Library, the commission that celebrates poets to create new work inspired by British Library exhibitions and local histories, stories and experiences. She was the recipient of Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Practice funding 2019.

Seminar Three Provocation: My Body is a Protest for Change

An installation of black art/artists in the landscape. Its reasoning is based on the idea of stillness and observation of buildings and bodies/marginalised artists not given access to buildings to show/display/ perform work that is viewed as valuable. There is whole silence around space, Landscape and building/art institution and marginalized communities of artists.

My body is a protest for change is the art of silence/ the art of being present, the art of creating work that not only perceives the struggle of a people and /or the ancestors on whose backs we stand (it is also the joy of creating and being an artist) . When we en/act silence, we hear the voices that speak of oppression, we hear the sermons of loss, we hear the eulogy/elegies/in the moment of stillness. 'The artist duty is to reflect the times' Nina Simone